It's the off-season at the lonely Beauregard Hotel in Bournemoth, and only the long-term tenants are still in residence. Life is stirred up, however, when the beautiful Ann Shankland arrives to see her alcoholic ex-husband, John Malcolm, who is secretly engaged to Pat Cooper, the woman who runs the hotel. Meanwhile, snobbish Mrs Railton-Bell discovers that the kindly if rather doddering Major Pollock, played by David Niven, who won an Oscar for his performance, a retired officer who likes to find out more...

This is as much an account of the harshness of life on an isolated Shetland Isle (a way of life is dying, steam trawlers from the mainland threaten its survival as a fishing port), as the story of two friends torn apart by the elements as they struggle against circumstance for sustenance. Powell's first film, and almost a documentary. find out more...